The DU Lounge

But when my sister and I were kids, my parents took us to downtown Cleveland a few times, this would have been in the mid 60s. Among the several big department stores, there was one called Sterling-Lindner’s.
Every Christmas they had a huge real tree on display in the atrium of the store. The one in 1966 was 73 ft. Tall. Gazing up at that tree I felt like it must have reached into the heavens. I still remember it well to this day. We also went to Higbee’s, Halle’s, I’m sure others. It was such a magical time. Halle’s 7th floor was the toy floor. They had this guy there called Mr. Jingaling who was dressed in a costume supposed to be one of Santa’s elves. You could ride around the toy dept. on a little train and when you got off the train his helper would give you a little paper cup of Jordan almonds (which I disliked but that was a minor thing). Mr. Jingaling also made appearances on local kid TV shows so of course every kid in the area wanted their parents to take them to Halle’s 7th floor. Also the store had those vacuum tubes to send your payment to the office when you bought something. I was into Steiff stuffed animals back then and I remember my mother bought me a stuffed tiger. It was such a happy time.

Here is the Sterling Lindner tree from 1966.